2 weeks Ago By Allison Hanes, Montreal Gazette
Article content Valérie Plante is heading to the United Nations in New York City again this week, a pilgrimage that has become somewhat of a fall tradition for Montreal’s mayor. This time Plante is attending the UN Summit of the Future , which will ponder some of the planet’s most profound challenges, like climate change, ecological transition, mass migration, sustainable development, rapid technological advancement, as well as peace and security. Plante was first invited to address the UN General Assembly during Climate Week in 2019 for her record of fighting global warming.
She was the only Canadian official to take centre stage that year at the annual gathering of world leaders. Plante has returned many times since. Her last trip in 2023 was somewhat overshadowed by François Legault , who was praised as a climate “hero” by former U.
S. vice-president and environmental crusader Al Gore, even though the Quebec premier is a johnny-come-lately in embracing anything resembling a green agenda . Each time Plante has been invited back, she has been given more responsibility.
Last year, she was named by UN Secretary-General António Guterres to an advisory group on local and regional governments , along with Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, New York City Mayor Eric Adams and others. The purpose was to inform the international body on how cities, provinces and states, rather than just countries, can contribute to confronting the many overlapping crises affecting the world. As that advisory committee wraps up its work and reports back to Guterres on Thursday, it will recommend that the UN accord permanent and official status to cities.
Given their critical role at the forefront of the planet’s most urgent problems, this is a worthy proposal for several reasons. About 55 per cent of the world’s population lives in urban areas. By 2050, that proportion is projected to rise to 68 per cent , according to the UN.
Megacities — Tokyo being the largest at 37 million — have more inhabitants than many countries. Vast as the country is, Canada’s population surpassed a record 40 million in 2023 , according to Statistics Canada. Quebec, in comparison, has just over nine million people.
By 2030, the UN anticipates there will be 43 megacities with over 10 million residents apiece. Cities thus need a strong voice when consequential decisions are being made that affect their interests and those of their citizens. Yet cities often lack the clout, money and authority to deal with issues that are global in scale but local in impact.
This is particularly true in Canada where, constitutionally speaking, municipalities are “creatures of the province” — and often treated as such. Montreal is a case in point. The city accounts for roughly a quarter of Quebec’s population, and the wider Montreal region for half, but its needs are often dismissed or ignored by the province.
Part of this is politics. Differing styles, priorities, ideologies and support bases can widen cleavages, as is the case with the Plante and Legault administrations. But at the root is a power and fiscal imbalance between cities and provinces.
Sometimes the federal government steps in to help cities directly. However, funding from Ottawa is often filtered through the provincial government. Just under 64 per cent of Montreal’s $6.
9-billion operational budget comes from property taxes , which are harder to raise each year given stagnating incomes and rampant inflation. So Montreal must go cap in hand to the Quebec government. This includes for funding to operate and expand public transit, an increasingly essential service to fight the climate emergency.
The largest and fastest-growing share of Quebec’s greenhouse gas emissions comes from transportation, specifically tailpipes. But as shortfalls plague transit agencies in Greater Montreal, the province is refusing to come to the rescue, raising the spectre of devastating service cuts, like shuttering the métro at night or axing entire commuter train lines. The 82 municipalities of the Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal used one of their few revenue-generating mechanisms and almost tripled the vehicle registration tax to raise money for transit.
But the Quebec government has only pledged part of the funds needed. Montreal and other municipalities asked Legault for $2 billion a year to adapt to extreme weather and other ravages of global warming. He was quick to dismiss their calls — on a day when diluvial rains drenched the city .
The Quebec government later meted out a fraction of the amount originally requested. Yet cities — and their residents — continue to bear the brunt of climate change. The damage from the remnants of Hurricane Debby passing through Montreal in August totalled close to $2.
5 billion , according to the insurance industry, in many cases from storm sewers being overwhelmed, backing up and flooding basements . The streets of Montreal are the scene of a worsening humanitarian catastrophe, with homelessness, drug addiction and mental illness increasingly visible. Police often have to respond to the fallout, even though this is actually a health and social services matter.
But provincial health budgets don’t match the scope of the problems, leaving charitable organizations to care for the most vulnerable. Cities also have to contend with other phenomena beyond their control, like the crunch in housing affordability and availability, as well as increasing numbers of permanent and non-permanent immigrants who tend to flock to urban areas. A modern country like Canada should consider empowering cities so they have financial and political might to match their economic and social heft.
But it seems unlikely the federal government will pick a constitutional fight with the provinces any time soon. Giving status to cities at the UN probably won’t change much for Montreal (or Toronto or Vancouver or Edmonton, for that matter), but it might be a step, however symbolic, toward according them more respect, recognition and representation. ahanes@postmedia.
com.
